The Batman Utility Belt
Louisa Cornell
I guess most people have wonderful memories of their childhood Christmases. I certainly do. And I do in spite of the fact we weren’t exactly wealthy. Hell, most months we weren’t even middle class. My Dad was an enlisted man in the United States Air Force, which means he had a noble and important job, especially during the Vietnam War, but not necessarily one that paid well. We always had enough to eat, but there weren’t funds for luxuries.
Except at Christmas.
Christmas was my father’s favorite holiday, and he and my Mom always made certain we had magical and plentiful Christmases with entirely too many toys under the tree and an amazing Christmas dinner. Well, and we got clothes and a new winter coat each, but that barely registered with us. Christmas meant we got the latest toys and nearly everything we’d listed from the Sears catalog.
Of all of those Christmases, the Christmas of 1966 has passed into the lore of our family as legend. The story has been told and retold throughout both sides of the family to the point that my second and third cousins can recount it word for word. It has elevated our family to the top of the family Christmas tree as none other has come up with a story to compare.
Thirty years after The Incident, both sides of the family gathered to pay tribute to the man all of my cousins conceded was the absolute most honorable, hard-working, and toughest character any of us had ever known. It was agreed until the day he died nothing and no one could take down the man everyone called Sarge. Until someone mentioned the Christmas of 1966 and…
The Batman Utility Belt Incident
In 1966 we were stationed at Craig Air Force Base in Selma, Alabama. We lived in a single-wide trailer in the Craig Hill Trailer Park where a great many enlisted men and their families lived. Whilst I don’t really remember which toy for girls was the most talked about on the trailer park playground that year, I DO remember what toy was the holy grail amongst the boys. The Batman Utility Belt. For those of you young enough to make me feel ancient, there was a Batman television program on twice a week starting in January of 1966. By December of that year, the frenzy for a utility belt just like Batman’s was at Beatlemania level. (Google Beatlemania rather than make me feel even older.)
My brothers, ages 2 and 5 had the Batman Utility Belt at the top of both of their Christmas lists. And my father, being the great Santa Claus he was, made certain when we raced from our beds Christmas morning to plunder through the presents under the silver Christmas tree (Yes, silver. Get over it.) like a Viking horde there were two spanking new Batman Utility Belts just waiting for them. In moments they had them out of the cardboard and plastic and had each donned the actual belt. But the belt, whilst cool, was not the best part. The belt came with a Baterang, Bat cuffs, a grappling hook, and best of all, a Bat gun that shot spring loaded Bat darts.
Do you see where this I going yet?
Soon my brothers were racing around the claustrophobic living room in their Batman utility belts throwing Baterangs at each other and singing the Batman theme song. (Google that. You’ll love it.) At some point, they figured out how to load the darts in the Bat gun.
I am not exactly certain how it happened. Over the years, the gun responsible and the one wielding it has changed depending on who tells the story. All I know is my Dad was standing in the archway between the living room and the tiny dining room watching the mayhem. Bat guns were fired in his direction. Like something out of one of those Bounty paper towel commercials everything moved in slow motion. Someone yelled “Noooo!” Too late. A Bat dart hit my father right between the eyes with the force of a Nolan Ryan fastball.
He dropped to the floor like a rock.
Dead silence ensued.
Then all hell broke loose.
My brothers crying and shrieking “We killed Dad! We killed Dad!”
Me leaning over my father’s prone body. “Daddy? Daddy? Are you okay?”
Mom kneeling at his side with a cold washcloth. “Jim, that’s gonna’ leave a mark.” What she knew that we didn’t was Dad had not been knocked out, just knocked down. By a Bat dart. From the Batman Utility Belt. We thought she was crying. She was making all kinds of noises.
She was laughing her ass off. Even now, when we tell the story she still cracks up. This man survived being wounded in Korea, being sucked into a jet engine, and would later survive a number of wartime and peacetime injuries. But the Batman Utility Belt was the only weapon that knocked him off his feet.
We sat at the table eating our Christmas dinner trying with all our might not to stare at the bright red dent in my Dad’s forehead. My Mom didn’t even try. She snickered through the entire meal whilst my long-suffering Dad gave her dirty looks. My brothers were almost too traumatized to eat. Almost. Needless to say, the Bat guns and Bat darts spent the next six months on top of the fridge. You didn’t have to shoot my Dad twice.
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About Louisa Cornell
Louisa Cornell is a retired opera singer living in LA (Lower Alabama) who cannot remember a time she wasn’t writing or telling stories. Anglophile, student of Regency England, historical romance writer, and a two-time Golden Heart finalist — she is a member of RWA, Southern Magic RWA, and the Beau Monde Chapter of RWA. Her first published work, the novella A Perfectly Dreadful Christmas in the anthology Christmas Revels, won the 2015 Holt Medallion for Excellence in Romance Fiction. Her first full-length Regency romance novel came out in May, 2017. Lost in Love is the first in Cornell’s Road to Forever series. Louisa lives off a dirt road on five acres in the middle of nowhere with a chihuahua so bad he is banned from vet clinics in two counties, several very nice dogs, and a cat who thinks she is a Great Dane and terminates vermin with extreme prejudice. Check in on Louisa’s latest books, Regency obsessions, and adventures at numberonelondon.net.
Read Louisa’s latest historical romance novel His Temptress, His Torment today!
